I was excited, nervous, worried, anxious and more, as I contemplated my return to work on Monday.  I hadn’t been back to work for a month and it takes a minute to get back into the Sunday night work prep routine.  Getting the all clear to return to work was a huge milestone for me.  The mental checklist in my head to get my life back to normal was short:  Return to work, see doctors, and repair family trust.  In my mind, this one item got me 33% closer to getting everything resolved and my life back to normal.  I was hugely excited and optimistic. One down, two to go!  I’d have purpose, a paycheck, and soon my life back.  I thought work would be the easy part.  Turns out I underestimated the extent to which my life could wholly unravel.

As a condition of my return to work, I was informed that I needed to work in the office every day, no longer allowed to work from home.  My work location didn’t have individual offices but rather open spaces that individuals could claim first come, first served.  The commute to my office could take anywhere between 45 minutes and 2 hours with traffic, each way, but I would take my punishment.  It wasn’t clear to me if this was because they thought I was crazy, related to my retracted disability claim, my unplanned time off and/or being put on a performance improvement plan.   (Although my manager told me I’d be put on a plan, the formalities were never executed.  My manager said she decided it would not be necessary.  The implied threat was enough to keep me in line.)

When I returned to work, my first objective was to get my laptop back, so the first stop I made was to the IT department. I didn’t know how much Roshni trusted my word at this point. I had to assume Wayne told her I was crazy. Roshni was new to the company, so I wasn’t sure if her answers were correct and/or final. I did remind her that my role was unique to the group and my coworkers were not familiar with my role as I transferred in as part of a reorganization. I worked with data that had to be stored locally, i.e. to my laptop hard drive due to its sensitive nature. I didn’t like her suggestion that the laptop was a lost cause and I needed to get a new one. However, as much as I tried, I couldn’t find any way to recover my old laptop.

The IT guy told me how lucky I was to have the new, state of the art machine and helped me set it up.  When it was done, he gave me a temporary password, “NM52CRY”. Those are my first and last initial, my age, and the letters CRY.  I immediately find that very suspicious and ask him who came up with the password.  We were sitting in a half height cubicle and the IT guy points across the aisle to a room full of IT people.

He looked at me oddly and said, “I don’t know. I think someone in there did it.”

“Who’s in there?” I asked suspiciously.

He just stared at me with a curious expression on his face. It was so odd.  And while I sat there I had a sense of someone watching me.  As I looked around, I didn’t see anyone overtly looking at me.

But first, let me explain the shock of “CRY”.

When I was at the mental ward, everyone thought I was taking the anti-psychotic medicine, but I wasn’t.  I was faking it in order to appease my family and doctors into letting me go home.  I was adamant with everyone that I was opposed to medication.  To reinforce this, I ad-libbed some reasons why.  The real reason is that I hate medicine in any form.  Anti-psychotic meds mess with your mind, and I wasn’t going to let that happen.  I didn’t want to continue lying to my family forever, so I thought to convince them of a reason (other than I wasn’t crazy) why I shouldn’t take the meds.  I told everyone that I was against taking meds because they made me numb.  I couldn’t emote.  I couldn’t cry.  I didn’t like how they made me feel. It was all a lie. I hoped that someone would tell me I could stop taking them, and I could stop the charade. But no one did.

So of course, when I saw “CRY” I thought it was too coincidental.  He couldn’t know that unless he had been talking to someone.  Like my sister Agatha or Wayne. They knew that I complained about not being able to cry.  I couldn’t excuse this as something random, when 4 of a 7 character password were specifically related to my name and age. The other 3 must be as well. I stewed on this for a while. It disturbed me.  Indeed, the first few months back to work would prove very disturbing and odd.

There were several aspects of my return to work that were challenging, like the changing job responsibilities I was facing, the curiosity from people about my absence, the adjustment back to a long work day, finding time to spend with my family, and deciding how to fit certain friends back into a social life. What I didn’t see coming was the number of strange occurrences that I experienced over the first months back.  I’ve consolidated some of them here, but they occurred spread out over the span of several months.

Now that I needed to come into the office every day, I had to find a work space in the farm of available cubicles.  I was told that I needed to sit in the area near the Finance people.  Once I located that area, I had to scan the huge room of half height cubicles, looking for one that might be available. I wanted an isolated area that didn’t have people who were talking on their phones all day.  Somewhere quiet.  I was able to find one that seemed suitable and unpacked my things.  The cubicles directly around me were empty, but I noticed the consulting company that was assisting with the company reorganization had several staff members a few cubicles away from me.  I could tell by their dress they were consultants because they were suited up, dressed much nicer than the average high technology worker. As I sat down, they all got up, speaking quietly, packed up their gear, and left the area.  Huh?  Did that just happen?  They see me coming and they all leave?  This was my first day back, it was eerie. It felt isolating.  I had this feeling that I was a leper, or for those reading this in 2021, I felt like I had the Covid and was contagious.  I wondered if this was a cooties thing or if they knew something about me and my situation.  Did they think I was crazy?

I didn’t usually think everything was about me, but lately it felt like it was. Before my hospital stay I would have thought this was odd, wonder why they were leaving, assume it must be a business reason, and leave it at that.  But I couldn’t do that today. This was my first day back. This was all new. I couldn’t be sure they weren’t told something about me, especially since someone demanded I sit in this area.  Clearly I was facing some insecurity.

Another time I was working, a woman in her mid-thirties, dressed in a stylish black pant suit walks down the aisle of cubicles, and stops in front of mine. I could feel her gaze on me, waiting for me to look at her.  So I do.  She says, “You know what really makes me mad? It’s when work-from-home people come in, take up space, and don’t really work.” I didn’t know this woman.  Hadn’t seen her before today, but I was thinking how nice she looked, how her outfit really suited her body type.  Then I wondered, was she talking about me?  I thought that was weird. I was not a regular here.  And yet, I felt this was directed at me, but how could it be when no one knew me or my situation?  I offered up some sympathy, gave her kudos on her outfit, and she seemed fine as she wandered off.  Why me?

As I established a daily routine in the office, I jumped back into my work.  When I had gone out on leave, I was in the middle of transitioning responsibilities with others.  Some of my tasks ended up going to a woman in India and I was given new tasks that were better aligned to my local management team. Once the musical chairs were done, I was busy learning and becoming adept at my new responsibilities.  Within three months I would have it down pat and would be looking for additional work to fill my time.  I estimated that once learned, the work would keep me part-time busy at best.

Every day in the office I tried to avoid people.  I stayed at my desk except to use the restroom down the hall.  At lunch, I would go to the cafeteria in the next building and return to eat at my desk.  One day, I went to the cafeteria, bought my lunch, and exited the cafeteria building.  The building doors are locked and require an employee badge to access them.  No one was about as I approached my locked office building.  I juggled the items in my hand to get my badge out. Focused on what I was doing, my heart skipped a beat when a woman jumped in front of me.  She startled me so much that I had to grab my lunch before I dropped it.  I hadn’t seen her on my approach, so where was she hiding?  It scared the shit out of me.   My heart was still beating faster than normal.

“Hey, I forgot my badge. Will you let me in?” She asked.  She was dressed in business casual attire. She looked like she belonged here, although I’d never seen her before. She didn’t seem to have a lunch with her. So I didn’t really know for sure if she’d come from the cafeteria.

This kind of thing happened occasionally.  I would normally assess the situation and maybe let them through. But this day, I thought this was some kind of test. The company could be testing me on the rules, or maybe they wanted to test my reasoning. I couldn’t be sure.  Was this a random event or intentional?

I said, “Sorry. I just finished security training and can’t do that.  But I can walk you to the lobby where you can get security to help you.”

In case this was a test, I didn’t want to break any rules, so I decided to follow security protocol and reported this woman to security.  I felt like a tattle-tale, but I wasn’t taking any chances that this was really about me. I had to be on my best behavior.  I felt like I was on probation.

The oddities just piled up.  On another day, I was in the breakroom at work, getting some coffee and water.  A man, dressed in black slacks, a white dress shirt and an ugly neon yellow tie walked into the breakroom.  I guessed he was in sales, he had that slick look about him.  He had a lunch bag in his hand and headed toward the white refrigerator in the corner of the room.  He opened the door, looked inside and started practically yelling at the room about how the community refrigerator was so full that he didn’t have room for his lunch. He was going on and on about how people didn’t take their shit home, how some of this stuff was probably a year old, how people were being disrespectful hogging up all the space, how some people were just pigs and never cleaned up the mess. It was an epic RANT.  I was startled by his volume and agitation.  But then he started rummaging through containers, bags, cartons and more to weed out the old food items.  He would grab a container or bag and toss into the nearby large metal garbage can, making a loud bang. Only it seemed like he was randomly choosing to grab things and throw them out. Nothing had expiration dates and he wasn’t actually opening items to see what was in them or how old they were.  After all that fuss, he put his lunch in, and left.

About two minutes later, as I’m getting my water, I see a woman in jeans and a t-shirt walk into the breakroom, head over to the refrigerator and look for her food. She shifted a bunch of items, rummaging around for a few minutes, but couldn’t find her food.  I wasn’t sure if the man had thrown hers out.  I felt at the time that this could be a test to see if I would tell her about the food the man threw out.  I didn’t want to get involved. I just wanted to be left alone.  I didn’t do anything wrong, but I felt guilty somehow. I felt complicit since I didn’t stop the man, I didn’t help him sort the old stuff, and I didn’t tell the woman what he’d done.  Maybe I could have stopped him or helped her. I just kept fixating on the various ways in which I was wrong or had done wrong. I felt bad about something I had nothing to do with.

For those of us who didn’t have assigned offices, the company had what they called closed offices.  These were private offices we could reserve for conference calls or times when you needed privacy.  There weren’t many, so people were generally considerate about not monopolizing the spaces.  I would use them more than normal as a way to hide out from running into anyone I knew. And I didn’t want anyone staring at me in the cubicle farm.

So, there I am one day, working away in a private office, and someone knocks on the door.  I call out that I’m in a meeting. He wants to know how long I’ll be. I tell him maybe 15 minutes.  He knocks again at 15 minutes and tells me to get out.  So I pack up my things and leave the room, walking around the corner to search the farm for an empty cubicle.

As I turn the corner, I see a handful of maintenance people in the middle of the hallway building a structure. They are taking up quite a bit of the hallway with carts of tools, piles of steel rods and sheets of plywood.  It looks like they are building a steel bunkbed, just like the kind you see

on TV for prisoners in a cell.  I stopped because I just wasn’t sure what was going on. I kept staring at it because it was so out of place. Was that real?

The maintenance people started laughing. I ask them is that a bed? They say yes.  That’s it. End of the conversation.  Huh.  I’m not hallucinating because I just talked with them.   I’m still noodling over the bunk bed in a high tech company hallway, wondering what the deal was, but it’s time for lunch, so I walk to the cafeteria.  The line was short, so I purchase my lunch and I’m walking back to my desk 10 minutes later, but it’s gone. No bed, no supplies, no equipment, no workers. No sign that it had ever been there. Maybe Wayne was right, that I had psychosis and I was seeing and hearing things that weren’t real.  I’m sure it was real though. I had even talked to one man and got a reply.  I start thinking this is about me again. Was this a trick?  Maybe people were testing my mental state.

I pondered the significance of a prison bunk bed.  What did it mean? Was it symbolic in some way?  Perhaps this was about my conscience and being guilty. I’d had the matter of the disability claim that could be seen as fraud. And at Teddy Roosevelt when I told the doctor that I had one or two alcoholic beverages a week (socially), he wrote down DUI on his notepad.  I thought he was claiming I had a DUI or drinking and driving offense, which I had not. Then there was the guilt over cutting down the tree without a permit, the 5150/5250….all the various things that I felt could send me to jail.  Was that bunkbed for me?

Perhaps HR was testing me. Because of Wayne, the company knew about my mental stay. Were they testing me on certain things?  Did people think I was crazy?  They could be testing me.  I didn’t think my boss would arrange a bunk bed, but maybe HR would do that.  Maybe HR was trying to protect the corporation.  If they knew some of the details, and I canceled my disability, what would they do to insure that I wasn’t dangerous or go crazy on them?  Was this outside the realm of possibility?  I knew I wasn’t crazy but these thoughts flitted through my mind as I worked through the day.

I wasn’t paranoid, I knew that the company checked up on people. They watched and listened to workers.  My coworker, married to a man in the IT department, said I should always keep my camera covered with a sticker as IT could activate laptop cameras on the network.  Her husband told her that the company (IT department) would listen in on conversations and review instant messaging communication between employees to ensure strict compliance with legal guidelines during our reorganization.  While IT did audit employees to be sure they were really working, they also ensured they complied with legal guidelines for meetings. Sure, checking people’s computers was different than staging bunk bed construction, but I thought it was possible they could so something like that.

Another day at work I went to the restroom.  The one that I normally used, closest to my cubicle, was closed for cleaning.  It meant that I needed to walk to the other side of the building and use the women’s room there.  As I exited the restroom, I noticed a wall length whiteboard that said “EXECUTION 2017” in big, bold black letters.  Now you could think this was related to

executing on a company plan or project.  But in my mind, thinking poorly about myself and situation, I internalized most of the things going on around me.

When I saw EXECUTION 2017, I jumped to the thought it was directed at me.  I didn’t see a firing squad in my future, but I did feel like I could be executed in the figurative sense.  But it was no less real than if it had been literal.  I took it that serious.  Maybe a shrink would interpret this reaction as me feeling so guilty that I think I deserve what I get.  And I did feel guilty, for so many things.  Being locked up in a mental ward on a 5150 was like being ‘detained’ for something I, or we, did wrong. Imagine being whisked away in the middle of the night and waking up in prison. Like in some 3^rd world country. I must have done something wrong to deserve that.   This could be blowback from Wayne’s decision to claim disability for me. Or general guilt for things I’ve done wrong but gotten away with, like breaking rules.  I felt guilty for so many things that I didn’t think execution was ridiculous. I felt I was going to be ‘executed’, figuratively. As I focused on the business use of the word, I took this to also mean that I needed to do what I do best – plan and execute.  I needed to fix all that was broken and to win Wayne back.

Part of me thought the execution was about Wayne’s job.  Wayne worked in Space Operations, for a Defense Contractor.  He was no secret agent or spy, but he had high level security clearances.  I don’t really know what level, but high enough that they come out every year and talk to the neighbors.  They make sure no one knows what Wayne really does.  He works on satellites.  The pay and benefits were good, and he was challenged, so I was fine not knowing the details of his job.

Wayne’s security clearance meant that we were always vigilant of circumstances or situations that might put his clearance at risk. Having a high security level meant that you couldn’t be in financial debt, couldn’t use drugs, couldn’t do anything that might make you a target for bribery or extortion.  Basically, we had to make sure that Wayne’s life was squeaky clean. For instance, if we were at a party or event and someone used drugs, even if it wasn’t us, even if we didn’t know them, even if it was a restaurant full of people, we would leave. We had a huge respect for the responsibility inherent in having a high level clearance.  We accepted that some government agency could routinely check up on us.  And while I didn’t think Russian spies were going through our garbage, the company brainwashed employees to think that way, in order to ensure security at all times.

So, I had a thought that the EXECUTION 2017 was something to do with the Government. Maybe the FBI or some 3 letter organization was checking on us. Maybe they were assessing if we were a security risk.  Was I guilty of a security breach?  Hell no. I hadn’t broken any laws or security rules. I didn’t have the clearance but I was overly cautious, maybe even paranoid, about ensuring no one in our family did anything that would be deemed inappropriate.  But I felt like I could have been guilty. And just like in the hospital, I had the sense that they were spying on me or trying to catch me at something. Maybe they thought Wayne had shared secrets with me. Maybe they were testing me to see if I would spill information I wasn’t supposed to have.

When I woke up in Teddy Roosevelt, not knowing where I was or why I was there, my first reaction was that it must be Wayne’s fault, indirectly.  Because it was like something out of a movie, being drugged, being locked up, waking up in a strange place, I jumped to the idea that this was the government testing me somehow.  I could imagine all sorts of movie plots with an innocent wife whose husband has a secret job. Maybe it was about bad people trying to get his secrets, holding the wife hostage to get information, the government trying to test him, the government testing the wife to see what she knows, and so on.

I thought that the whole hospital was just a stage and the medical staff were all actors, testing me based on some nefarious plot. It had to be about Wayne’s job because it was so surreal.

I took Wayne’s responsibilities as seriously as he did and even trained the kids to think that way.  We gave our kids years of brainwashing about how important it was to follow the rules for Wayne’s job.  Not to take risks, they were different, we had higher standards we had to live to, don’t risk Dad losing his job, etc.

I was sure the government was listening to me at the hospital.  They could even be testing me. Trying to break me. They want to see if I would leak information.  I wouldn’t do that.  I’ve spent years protecting Wayne and keeping his secret.  Maybe they put me in here. Maybe I was drugged in the Emergency room and they got me committed. I wouldn’t talk.  Other than knowing what Wayne generally did, I really had no information. But maybe they were trying to see if I could become compromised.

They probably have people watching us at times.  And I’m sure they find out what we do wrong. They know.  I think they test people too, to make sure they won’t break. To make sure they follow the rules.  You know they do. They were testing me.

During my hospital stay, I was so convinced that somehow this was related to Wayne’s security clearance, and the Government testing me, that I had even prepared a speech or response in case they came to get me.

I think the guilt was a manifestation of my low self-esteem due to being locked up with the stigma of a mental breakdown.  My husband clearly thought there was something wrong with me.  Being a perfectionist, I just couldn’t take it, so I continued to castigate myself. I just needed to be better, smarter, kinder, and so on.  I felt branded. As if I had a scarlet letter branded to my forehead that others could see. Like I was damaged goods walking.

For several months I continued to see odd things happening to me that I thought were a signal of some sort.  As much as I tried to convince myself that these were just random events, they seemed to happen with a frequency that belied them being random.  I tried to push the disquiet aside and bury myself in work.  But that wasn’t so easily done.

Photo by LYCS Architecture on Unsplash

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Nikita@dontreleaseme.com

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